


we're connected [ you and i ]

by eternalmagic



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash, promare AU, sakura and elise are also here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29272551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalmagic/pseuds/eternalmagic
Summary: A chance encounter -- one that lasts barely a moment -- but one that will shape their fates all the same.[ a leokumi promare au oneshot. ]
Relationships: Leon | Leo/Takumi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	we're connected [ you and i ]

**Author's Note:**

> hello! i galaxy brained and came up with this idea after seeing a lovely piece of art by an artist on tumblr [[link here]](https://meilima.tumblr.com/post/624638635803852800/mad-burnish-x-leos-retainers) and just had to write it while fiddling with y two larger fic projects. i intended to finish it sooner, but my life has been consumed by ffxiv so i got distracted. anyway, this was an attempt to write something small, but if you all enjoy it i'd be willing to flesh out the au itself once one of my other fics is done!
> 
> title also comes from nexus from the promare ost.

“That’s…”

Takumi can hardly believe his eyes. He’s seen a fire before of course--being a firefighter, it’s only natural that he has--but this is like no other fire he’s ever seen. The flames practically dance across the side of the apartment building standing before him, the heat so intense that it’s turned the blaze colors that Takumi has only ever seen on television.

These are Burnish flames--completely unnatural in both color and shape, conjured from thin air like magic.

The matoi nearly falls out of his hand, and Takumi has to fumble to keep it from slipping to the ground. This seems to jolt him out of his reverie, and the sound comes flooding back to his senses. He hears Ryoma shouting, encouraging the civilians managing to flee to keep moving to safety and gesturing with his own matoi. Hinoka’s aircraft soars above them, and her voice rings out as she advises all the buildings nearby to evacuate.

“Takumi!” He hears, and Takumi looks up to see Sakura racing towards him from the medical tent she’s set up. She stumbles into him, eyes wide. “Takumi, there’s someone on the fourth floor, I don’t think they can get out!”

Takumi follows where she points with his eyes and spots the window in question, then hears a faint woman’s voice calling out, slowly growing louder in volume.

Takumi glances briefly at Sakura, nodding. “I’m on it.” He promises, dropping his matoi in exchange for a collapsible ladder and racing towards a piece of the building not overcome with flames. In an instant he’s set up the ladder, and he doesn’t even need to call for a hand as one of the other firemen--Takumi manages to see that it’s Hinata--has come to keep the ladder steady for him.

He’s halfway up the ladder when the window he’s trying to reach explodes outwards, startling him so much he nearly loses his grip on the ladder. Burnish flames blast out at least five feet from the window sill before dying down and beginning to lick their way up the side of the building. The woman Takumi had heard before starts to scream in earnest, and that spurs Takumi into continuing up the ladder.

The flames have died down to embers on the lower sill by the time Takumi has finished the climb. As carefully as he can, he grips it with his gloved hand and pulls himself up enough to peer inside.

He is greeted with the sight of a woman weeping, Burnish flames coming from her hands and dancing through her light purple hair, and a figure standing above her protectively. Takumi gasps, clenching the hand that’s gripping the window sill enough to crush the wood and make a noise loud enough to be heard over the blaze around them.

The figure’s head jerks up at the noise, and that’s when Takumi realizes it’s a person whose body is being enveloped in the Burnish flame before solidifying into the Burnish armor he’s seen on the news station in Windmire.

The woman, a slight young thing, gasps when she realizes Takumi is there. He recognizes her--Layla, he remembers, who he’d met a few times in the city library who was applying to the school of dance in Windmire. Her eyes well up with tears, her expression one of terror.

“Hey--” Takumi starts, but the moment he opens his mouth the other Burnish figure scoops Layla into his arms and conjures up flames to fill the room. With a yelp Takumi moves out of the way in time as the side of the building erupts from the inside, debris raining to the ground below. The Burnish conjures a bridge to the ground below, Layla held carefully in their arms.

Takumi swallows thickly as the two pass him, and finds himself making eye contact with the half-armored Burnish figure. He glimpses a tuft of pale blonde hair, fair skin, and a warm brown eye before the figure is fully engulfed in armor, horns curling from the top of the helmet.

The flames swirl and jump as they come together enough to form a four legged creature--a horse, Takumi realizes--beneath the armored Burnish. In an instant, the armored man is gone, his steed galloping off on the bridge until taking off down the road towards the outside of town. As if to join him, a different apartment in the building also explodes and another, smaller armored Burnish figure rides off on a similar steed, leaving carnage in its wake.

Takumi gasps for air, realizing that he’s trembling and clinging to what remains of the top of the ladder with terror. He faintly hears his two sisters calling to him, but he doesn’t feel his heart slow its beating until Hinoka comes close enough on the engine’s ladder to collect him. The fire is under control shortly after that, but there is no sense of relief from the firefighters or the citizens.

Ryoma was right--The Burnish had finally come to Shirasagi. It had been only a matter of time, but Takumi wishes that they had had just a little bit longer before their city was to join Windmire’s Freeze Force campaign.

Takumi thinks of Layla, of the two armored Burnish who had fled the fire, and finds that he is unable to sleep at all when night finally comes.

  
The only thing he hears is the pounding of the flame horse below him and his blood pulsing in his ears.

The woman he’d saved from the firefighters had passed out not long after Leo began his flight from Shirasagi, her body sagging against his chest with the last of her energy sapped. Leo didn’t know what had caused her to awaken to her true nature as Burnish, but it had been sudden and tiring enough that the woman seemed exhausted.

They were now a several hour long ride from Shirasagi, and Leo deems it safe enough to slow his mount. The flame horse slows from a gallop to a canter and then a trot, finally coming to rest in a small patch of trees. When Leo glances behind him to be sure he wasn’t followed, he finds another, smaller horse and rider approaching.

As the rider approaches, Leo allows the solidified flame to dissipate around his head. The helm vanishes, and he’s allowed to show the way he purses his lips at the new arrival.

“I thought I told you that I was going to come back.” He says sharply. “What did you follow me for?”

The other rider crosses her arms--behind her own helm of flame, Leo knows she’s pouting. This is confirmed when the helm burns away, letting long golden hair fall around his sister’s shoulders.

Elise narrows her eyes at him. “I can’t stay behind--you know Xander told you that we’re supposed to stay together if we’re going to be safe out here. Besides, you had such a flashy exit from the building, I wasn’t sure you’d manage to ever evade the Shirasagi police!”

Leo rolls his eyes. “You know as well as I do that this was the first time the Burnish have ever appeared in that city. And if we were going to get this woman--” Leo gestures to the woman still unconscious in his arms. “--to safety, we have to be both fast and careful so we don’t have Fire Force coming down on us.”

Elise sighs, arms dropping to her sides as she practically droops into her saddle. “I know, but I don’t want to ride that far!”

“Do you want this woman to be safe with Effie and the others or not?”

Elise puffs up her cheeks. “Fine. But you’re a big meanie and you should make it up to me.”

Leo rolls his eyes again, letting flames lick across his face and reform his horned helmet. Elise pulls her hair back and lets her own helmet reform, and the two turn to the south to continue the journey to where their allies had been laying low.

Leo lets out a slow breath, centering himself. He glances at the woman slumped against him.

One more mouth to feed. One more Burnish to hide.

As he spurs his horse onwards, Leo thinks of the fireman he had vaulted past during his escape, knowing now beyond a shadow of a doubt that they can never go back to Shirasagi--not if he intends to keep his promise to Xander and Camilla to take Elise from Windmire, to keep the youngest of them safe should their father turn Fire Force against them. If even one of those firefighters found them, Leo would have failed, all because he was so intent on saving other Burnish as well. He knows he has to stop leaping in to save their people, but he has to say that Corrin rubbed off on him more than he had thought.

The sun falls below the horizon, and Leo is left to his thoughts as he and Elise continue their long trek back to their allies.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr at x-eternalmagic or howdomaddie, and on twitter as @howdomaddie! if you enjoyed this, please leave me a comment and tell me what you liked most! i promise it will make my day.


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